Online casino games are one of the many things which have made the Internet revolution of the past 20 years fun for all of us.
At the same time, there has been a certain amount of confusion as to what constitutes online gambling, what precise types of games there are, how it differs from going into a walk-in casino and what the best casino games are exactly.
So read on, and we will give you all you need to get going in this fun, exciting and often rewarding world!
What are the best online casino games?
Think of casino games online as being the parallel of the bricks and mortar version.
Just as you can play Roulette, Baccarat, BlackJack and Craps in Vegas, Monaco, Macau or even just on the Baltic Ferries, so too can you play them online.
The main difference is, of course, it is just you and the computer, there will usually be no other people present as such, which has the advantage of being able to play in your pyjamas!
On the other hand, if you prefer real-life human contact then many sites will include Live Dealer games on their casino games list, which are exactly as they sound, a Live Dealer whom you can see via video linkup will do all the same things as they would in the walk-in casino.
This is a great boon for those who live in out-of-the-way places who cannot get to a physical casino, or who live in a jurisdiction (such as ours) where land-based casinos are (at the time of writing) not allowed.
But the principles of this type of casino gaming are just the same as they are in the ‘real’ world; playing Roulette online is exactly the same as playing in a casino, although there are some things which are easier, such as being able to alter the time between spins and to see at a glance how the recent numbers have fallen.
Most popular types of casino games online
Roulette, BlackJack et al.Yet there, generally lumped together as ‘table games’ are undoubtedly amongst the most popular games, and there are other less well-known games such as Red Dog, Crown and Anchor, Virtual Horse Racing and even virtual Scratch Cards available at many sites.
Another significant casino game is Bingo, which can also be played online, as can its close relative Keno.
But there’s one more major category we haven’t mentioned yet, namely slots.
Again, the principles behind online slots are the same as the stand-up ‘fruit machines’ that many of us may remember from our (hopefully not too) misspent youths, all flashing lights, bells and yet there are some striking differences which only the online revolution was able to facilitate.
The first of these which affects slots in particular, when you play casino games online, is that graphics, sound, bonus rounds and much more are a massive leap forward on the old-school one armed bandits.
This makes the gaming experience much closer to playing a regular video game, and indeed many developers cultivate this approach.
There are usually more than the three reels that we used to have as well, and lacking the potential problems of a mechanical device, most online slots have five reels and many pay lines, which you can adjust to your taste.
You can also select which ‘coins’ to use online, and – another thing you wouldn’t have been able to do in the old days – you can click ‘Autoplay’, and the reels will spin by themselves for as many as 50 or more times so you can go and do something else, and this does not affect your chances of winning either!
Speaking of which, that is the other factor which is attractive when you play online casino games.
The Return to Player (RTP) is typically very high, around 95% or more in a lot of cases.
The RTP figure essentially tells you how much you can expect to receive back of your original stake, expressed as a percentage. While 95% sounds a lot, it, of course, means you’d be (slightly) ‘down’ on your original bankroll.
There are a couple of answers to this concern. First, this is an AVERAGE figure, and as we all know, averages don’t tell the whole story – simply flipping a coin, say, 8 times in a row can lead to 6 or 7 ‘heads’ when the real odds would suggest 5 of each.
Second, this is straight play without any tactics or thinking into what you are doing (there are a few things you can do when even playing games of chance like Roulette or Slots, to maximise your chances of winning).
And most of all, online games, particularly online slots, are not confined to the physical size of the machine as with the traditional way of gaming.
Whereas however many coins a ‘fruit machine’ can hold is the maximum you could win, online slots have no such problem and, thanks to linked networks of the jackpots on some slots (called ‘progressives’) jackpots of literally millions have been won by people playing online!